Yeah Europeans are going to stick to their little diesel city cars.

Many Europeans cannot afford iPhones as they are an overpriced costly luxury there, yet I'm supposed to believe they're all going out tomorrow to buy solar panels. Right.

Heat pumps? They're famous for hating air conditioning and mostly heat their homes with hydronic, but whatever.

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vrganj 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

A complete 900W solar setup you can put on your balcony, plug into an outlet and cover a good chunk of your energy needs costs 200 Euros: https://shop-sicatron.de/products/sicatron-910w-balkonkraftw...

It's thoroughly practical, especially with energy prices being what they are now.

Unclear what Apple's pricing policy has to do with this,.

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longislandguido 4 hours ago | parent [-]

That sounds extremely dangerous; you cannot add PV (or any secondary source) in the US and connect it to utility power without it being done by an electrician and inspected by the city.

I'm shocked that safety-conscious Europe—especially Germany, known for its strict rules—would allow this.

Or is this more AliExpress garbage with a German flag glued to it?

	▲	alnwlsn 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		A lively Hackaday discussion from yesterday on this very topic: https://hackaday.com/2026/03/31/solar-balconies-take-europe-...
	▲	vrganj 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Sounds like the US might have a problem with overregulation holding them back, then?
	▲	pjc50 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Astonishingly, this is one case where the Germans have got the regulation right.
	▲	toomuchtodo 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> That sounds extremely dangerous; you cannot add PV (or any secondary source) in the US and connect it to utility power without it being done by an electrician and inspected by the city. This is factually inaccurate. Utah was the first to legalize plug in solar, and 17 other states have legislation pending to do so. It sounds like you are unaware of regulations around islanding in both Europe and the US. This is a solved problem. > The biggest regulatory concern – energizing lines during an outage and putting line workers at risk – is not really an issue, since inverters are covered by UL 1741, and have “anti-islanding” capability. UL 3700 specifically addresses plug in solar risks and mitigating them. Resources on the topic below: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/03/27/the-theory-and-practi... https://solarunitedneighbors.org/resources/what-to-know-abou... https://www.ul.com/news/ul-solutions-debuts-testing-and-cert... https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NANIjW3yGsFhpNTzvg30kMHo... https://permitpower.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2026/01/... https://www.cesa.org/resource-library/resource/plug-in-solar... https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/balcony-solar-tak... https://www.brightsaver.org/publicly-filed-states https://www.digikey.com/en/articles/anti-islanding-and-smart...
	▲	3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

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pjc50 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I have a set of solar panels and a "hydronic" heat pump, despite living all the way up at 56N in the maybe-Europe UK. We also have access to both cheap Chinese EVs and the increasingly acceptable EU ones, like the Renault 5.

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thefz 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The only reason people skip the iPhone here is because it is directly associated with being an asshole. Sent from my heatpump-heated home in the Julian Alps.